QUESTION: What are the longest and fastest illegal world records, e.g. those that were wind-assisted?
At the European Cup meeting on June 25, 1995, at the Stadium Lille Metropole in France, Jonathan Edwards recorded a triple jump of 18.43m (60ft 4 inches).
However, the wind speed of 2.4 metres per second was above the legal limit of 2 metres per second, so it couldn’t count as a world record. At the World Championships in Gothenburg the next year, Edwards jumped 18.29m (60ft), the current world record.
The long jump world record was set at the Tokyo World Championships in 1991, when Mike Powell jumped 8.95m (29ft 3in) to break the 8.90m mark achieved by Bob Beamon at the 1968 Mexico Olympics.
However, assisted by an illegal wind of 4.4 metres per second, Powell jumped 8.99m (29ft 4in) in Sestriere on July 21, 1992.
Jonathan Edwards recorded a triple jump of 18.43m (60ft 4 inches) at the European Cup meeting on June 25, 1995
Though ratified as a world record, Florence Griffith Joyner’s time of 10.49 for the 100m in the 1988 U.S. Olympic trials remains in doubt by some, as the wind speed was recorded as zero despite it being a blustery day.
There was strong suspicion of a defective anemometer. Since 1997, the International Athletics Annual of the Association of Track and Field Statisticians has listed this performance as ‘probably strongly wind-assisted, but recognised as a world record’.
Tim Mickleburgh, Grimsby, Lincs
QUESTION: Where is the lake featured in Depeche Mode’s Enjoy The Silence video?
Enjoy The Silence was the second single taken from Depeche Mode’s seventh studio album, Violator (1990), regarded as their best work.
The Dutch photographer and director Anton Corbijn directed the video. It featured lead singer Dave Gahan wandering through disparate landscapes such as the Scottish Highlands, the Swiss Alps and the Algarve. He is carrying a deckchair under his arm and surveying each new domain.
Walkers in Aberdeenshire will recognise the loch in the video as Loch Muick (pronounced ‘Mick’), an upland, freshwater loch about five miles south of Braemar on the Balmoral Estate.
Rising above Loch Muick is 3,789ft Lochnagar, one of the most celebrated Scottish Munros (mountains over 3,000ft). It was immortalised in a poem by Lord Byron, ending ‘Oh! For the crags that are wild and majestic/ The steep frowning glories of dark Lochnagar’.
R. P. Taylor, Perth
QUESTION: The UK is said to have more than 200 ‘forgotten airfields’. What became of them?
When the Second World War broke out, the RAF had to greatly expand its stock of airfields. Many were built on requisitioned land in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, which was geographically the best place for launching bombing raids into Germany while staying out of range.
Other airfields were built in Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and Cornwall for use by the maritime patrol aircraft of Coastal Command. Aircrew training bases were built farther inland and, as planning for D-Day got under way, new airfields were built in southern England.
When the U.S. entered the war at the end of 1941, there was a second surge of airfield-building to accommodate the 8th Air Force of the United States Army Air Force (USAAF).
Because 8th Air Force flew heavier aircraft than the RAF, they built their runways to a higher standard and provided better infrastructure. Many of those airfields were taken over after the war; some, such as Lakenheath and Mildenhall, remain in USAAF service today.
When the Second World War broke out, the RAF had to greatly expand its stock of airfields (file image)
In postwar Britain, a lot of the Second World War airfields were returned to their former owners and uses, mostly agricultural. While these airfields may be classed as ‘forgotten’, their runways can still be seen from the air, as it was too expensive to rip up the reinforced concrete. Even the outlines of some runways can still be seen.
Some former airfields still have the skeletons of buildings, such as the air traffic control tower at RAF Coleby Grange in Lincolnshire.
As the size of the RAF dwindled, many of its airfields were converted for other uses, such as radar stations and supply depots until they, too, were no longer needed. Some buildings were sold for commercial use.
Some buildings at RAF Hemswell (closed 1974), in Lincolnshire are now an antiques centre. The former RAF Gaydon (closed 1974) in Warwickshire is home to the British Motor Museum and the Aston Martin car company.
One of the older RAF stations, RAF Hendon, is now mainly housing or commercial premises but is also the home of the RAF Museum.
Other airfields, although no longer active, are retained by the MoD for emergency use.
Bob Cubitt, Northampton
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Write to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Daily Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY; or email charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk
